SCHOOL BOARD MOVES TO OPPOSE HANCOCK II

Citing a loss of more than $800,000 if it passes, the Cape Girardeau School District Board of Education unanimously passed a resolution Monday night opposing the Hancock II amendment to the Missouri Constitution. The Hancock II amendment is Amendment 7 on the November ballot.

"It's retroactive," said John Campbell, the school board member who proposed the resolution. "That's why we will have an immediate loss of revenue. We get shoved back to 1980 taxes."

Campbell, who recently attended an informational session on the amendment in St. Louis, said if Hancock II passed it would be equal to the district's cutting 46 teachers.

"It would be anarchy," he said. "Every person would speak for themselves, and I don't think our forefathers envisioned that. They wanted a representative form of government, not every man for himself."

Board member Kathy Swan also stumped in favor of the resolution.

"Every building permit fee, every user fee," she said, "they will all have to be voted on. Those elections will cost too much for many of the county governments in this state."

Members of the Cape Teacher Association and local chapter of the National Education Association presented reports to the board before the proposed resolution.

Both representatives said their organizations opposed the amendment.

CTA President Jo Peukert said she was pleased with the board's resolution.

"CTA's executive committee passed their own resolution last Monday," she said. "What the board did this evening makes us very happy."

Peukert said CTA will conduct an informational meeting on Amendment 7 at the Cape Girardeau Vocational-Technical School Oct. 24. She said the meeting is open to the public and begins at 3:45 p.m.

In addition to passing the resolution, the board discussed a joint informational meeting with Southeast Missouri State University.

"I have discussed this with the university president, Dr. Kala Stroup," Superintendent Neyland Clark said, "and we would like to see something maybe on Oct. 25."